I’m intrigued by the game “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.”  I’ve never played it, and I doubt that I’d be any good at it since I’m not a movie buff.  But the underlying assumption is interesting:  there are no more...

This morning I was thinking about a decision I made which had some dire immediate consequences, leading to the closure of the church I was pastoring.  It was the right choice but it caused much pain for me and many...

Welcome to a new blog!  This post is an introduction.  There are some previous posts as I was trying to get my thoughts together.  Check some of them out after reading this one. With this blog, I invite you to...

A few years ago there were some major conflicts in our regional church council, the presbytery.  I found myself in the thick of it, sometimes being asked to publicly defend one of the sides.  I am willing to speak my...

I want to launch this blog out into the blogosphere.  I had hoped to have it in the form I wanted by last September, and then by November, and now by this March.  But I keep imagining how you will...

Many years ago my our family inherited a couple of goats, Prudence and Saphire.  We were renting a farmhouse and so we had a space for them to roam about in.  But we needed to purchase some alfalfa hay to...

Somewhere deep inside I have always known that all that I have and all that I am I have received as a gift.  The world is here; it is a given.  My life and my consciousness are givens.  I think...

Every once in a while, when someone notices a similarity between one of my sons and me, they will say, “You look like Joel,” or “You act like Aaron,” or “You think like Blair.”  While I appreciate the complements, I...

For many years I have asked myself why many Christians seem to believe that God will judge us by our orthodoxy, according to the beliefs which we hold in our minds. I know some of the history of the reformation...

A question to all preachers:  What is it about the sermon you are preparing to preach that can only be proclaimed by you? If you were to write out your sermon, word for word, could someone else read it and...